The work of fine art photographer Tamara Dean has an ethereal, otherworldly quality that belies the challenges of its creation. And never quite so much as in her latest series, Instinctual, which was created over two years and will be the subject of an exhibition in Sydney from February.
One shoot, done during an artist residency with cultural organisation Kulchajam in Byron Bay, was particularly interesting, she says. “It was dusk, which gave it a no-time sensibility. We were near where the river meets the sea; I had all these people in the water in the nude. About 15 minutes into it a woman walking her dog came past. She said we had to get everyone out. Apparently there were bull sharks there.” Dean says the models – recruited via Instagram – were very sporting about the whole thing.
She faced another dilemma on her first foray into underwater photography. “I had to invest in a whole lot of equipment and I didn’t realise how buoyant humans were,” says Dean. “As I shot, my husband was pushing me down to make me stay under while the subject had to hold a rock to keep herself weighted down.”
Dean says that while she has a lot of fears around the ocean, “I love waterholes and rivers, where the water is cloudy and dense. I wanted to explore our integral relationship with water, both environmentally and personally. I’ve used human figures in a way that refers to fish shoaling. I was trying to create images that have a subtle way of communicating that relationship to how we’ve evolved.”
Aside from the physical challenges of doing so, there was the issue of a 10- to 20-minute window of dying light. “I could see the absolutely beautiful light as I worked, but photography isn’t a literal translation of what you’re looking at,” she says. “I was really relieved that I was able to capture that quality of light in these images. I have to get everyone in place and hope that something like that happens.”
Dean continues: “You can’t predict it. You just have to hope for a little bit of magic in the air.”
Former news photographer
As for the tantalisingly ambiguous full moon that appears in so many of her shots – it’s a coincidence. “I don’t ever plan around the moon. I’d never get anything done if I did that. But over the years it has seemed to be coming up whenever I’m doing a shoot with women in the landscape.”
Instinctual is Dean’s first solo exhibition for in years. Until 2014 she was a news and features photographer with Fairfax Media, while concurrently developing her artistic practice for over a decade. Since moving with her husband and two primary-school-age children to an acreage on the NSW south coast, she has made it her full-time practice.
And she’s been busy. An invitation to create an installation for the 2018 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art followed her selection as one of 44 photographers from more than 4300 entries to hang in the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize at the National Portrait Gallery, London. That exhibition runs until the end of February.
“My work explores the relationship between humans and the natural world and the role of instinct and ritual in our contemporary lives. I’m quite intuitive to the way I approach these things and I’m loving the chance to try to make a go of it full-time.”
